The CC briefly worked at a job whose main redeeming feature was the absolutely killer Korean grocery store across the street. The store was always crowded any time of the day or night with the stock continuously being refreshed since it was small in that New York-kinda way.
One of the "features" was that they almost always had baby octopus for purchase and it was extremely cheap. (It was frozen and then thawed but given the rather tough nature of octopus in general, this was a feature not a flaw.)
This recipe pulls out all the stops from three cuisines to make a completely elegant meal.
The CC generally serves it with a vegetable-heavy side dish like mixed vegetables in vinaigrette but he's also served it with a cauliflower gratin successfully. You could also make a great pasta out of it.
What are the tricks?
First make a light dashi. In this, dump carrots, onions and black peppercorns à la française and poach the baby octopus until tender.
(You can store the octopus in the fridge after this for a few days after this step. It allows you to scale. Never let it be said that CC doesn't adore convenience like the rest of the world!)
Finally, stir-fry it with anchovies and tomato paste quickly at the last minute and serve.
Why do the tricks work?
Firstly — umami.
Secondly, the poaching with carrots and onions gives it this sweetness that is not possible just otherwise. (It also allows you to scale effortlessly. As easy to cook for eight as it is for two.)
Finally, the anchovies and tomato paste add even more umami to the mix.
Ingredients
(serves 4)
16-20 baby octopus(es)†
1 small piece konbu
1 small carrot
1 small onion
1 tbsp black peppercorns
salt
1 anchovy
1 tbsp tomato paste
olive oil
Note: Frequently, the octopus is called to be poached using red wine. The tannins in the wine definitely give it a specific taste and structure and the wine-water azeotrope lowers the boiling point in the fish-cooking style. However, the CC finds the final product to be less flexible as far as adopting it to different ideas afterwards so he skips it.
Recipe
Heat up some water with the konbu. Right before it comes to boil, remove the konbu (otherwise it will turn bitter.) Add the carrots, onions, black peppercorns, and salt, and bring to a simmer.
Add the baby octopus and cook until tender. Roughly 25 minutes. The CC sometimes stops it early if he wants the octopus to have more of a bite. (This really is personal preference.)
Fish out the octopus and set aside.
(You can filter the broth and store it for later use. Discard the solids.)
Heat up some olive oil in a skillet. Add the anchovy and fry for a bit. Add the tomato paste and fry until it gives off an aroma. Add the octopus and fry for about 3-4 minutes. Serve.
† The plural of octopus is octopuses or since it's derived from the Greek — octopodi. It is not under any circumstance octopii since it's not a Latin word (like radius) but a Greek one. Thank you!
Showing posts with label onions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label onions. Show all posts
Thursday, October 5, 2017
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Sopa de Almejas (Clam Soup)
There is this wonderful Peruvian restaurant in Connecticut that the CC has been visiting for more than a decade. It makes a killer sopa de almejas.
Since the restaurant is a bit of a hike for the CC, he always ends up ordering the soup — rather than the other possibly amazing dishes — and he's never disappointed. It's served with some bread (at best, average) and some amazing homemade aji criollo.
However, it's the soup that really sings and the CC has been trying to reproduce it ever since.
At long last — it only took a decade — he's untangled the various strands and made it for himself, and it's exactly as killer.
There were several hidden problems that needed to be solved. One was that the soup came with this emulsified broth with a very deep taste. Inside it were placed four or five rather large clams. Finely chopped cilantro was sprinkled on the top. The broth had no solids but it had an intense flavor. There was a reasonable amount of oil in the broth like all restaurants. However, this turned out to be a red herring. There were more important things at play.
Some things were really obvious. There was a lot of tomato purée in the broth. There were the deep notes of black pepper. It was clear it was some kind of fish broth. It also had a very deep cilantro flavor that could not be coming from the tiny amount of stuff sprinkled on top.
The other clue was the price point on the menu. It was one of the cheapest items, and the serving was large enough for a very good lunch. Now, clams are rather cheap on the Eastern seaboard but they're not that cheap so that means the ingredients inside the broth had to be cheaper. (The CC considered the possibility that they were using commercial clam juice but the taste of the broth had a subtle fresh flavor so it didn't seem very likely.)
Other clues. The clams were served on the half-shell and were very juicy. They could not have been cooked with the broth, and they were too plump to have been sitting in there for too long.
Two other important clues.
The dish always took a little longer to serve than other dishes (when the CC went with friends) and the surprising one — the broth was served piping hot. It was served almost at boiling point (close to 90-95°C.) When the broth cooled down, the soup didn't taste as good. Clearly, the temperature mattered greatly.
Peruvian cuisine is the ultimate mashup — besides the indigenous Incan origin, it's had Spanish, Italian, Chinese, West African and particularly Japanese influences.
It was clear that the broth had tons of umami but once again the price-point was critical. They may have been using MSG but it was being done with a light hand.
The critical insight is that this was a cheap restaurant surviving on very low margins. Nothing could be wasted. There were shrimp on the menu and they were clearly buying them whole. The broth was being made with the shrimp heads and the shells. They are the source of the resonant thumping flavor. Also, the broth clearly had onions and garlic and tons of black pepper and cilantro. However, after the broth being made, it was being filtered and solids pressed and tossed out. Then the clams were being shucked, and cooked in the broth, and whole thing brought to the table piping hot. They were also generous with salt.
Why did the temperature matter?
The CC is not completely sure but it seems plausible that the bitter notes of the cilantro and the pepper were dominating at lower temperatures. When hot, you just got the heady hit of the salt and umami from the broth and the tomatoes.
Sopa de Almejas
Note 1: The clams that the CC gets are the standard East Coast clams. The giant ones are easier to find up in Connecticut, Massachusetts & Maine. This doesn't matter as much. They were definitely using local stuff not Manila clams, etc.
Note 2: The salt in this recipe is really crucial. You need to add a teeny bit more than you think completely rational. The CC added salt to the boiling broth until it tasted "correct". It was a lot more than he expected. It will not be the same without.
Note 3: Unless you have shrimp heads and shells in your freezer, the clear substitute would be dried shrimp. You will also need some kombu unless you plan to add MSG. Not going to work otherwise.
Note 4: As ridiculous as this sounds, it's better with crusty bread that has been wrapped for about 6-8 hours in foil so that it goes just slightly limp from the exhalation of the moisture from the starch. The CC is perfectly aware that this is anal retentiveness† of the highest order.
Note 5: The broth really needs to be at a boil. The CC is not kidding.
Ingredients
(serves 2)
1 dozen clams
2 tbsp oil
1 small onion (diced fine)
6-8 cloves of garlic (chopped)
4-6 tbsp tomato purée
1 piece kombu
1/4 cup dried shrimp
1/4 cup dried anchovies (if you have them)
1/3 cup diced cilantro (stems and all)
3 tbsp coarsely ground black pepper
4 cups water
salt
finely chopped cilantro leaves (to serve)
Recipe
First make the dashi.
Bring the water to the boil with the kombu. Right before the water boils, remove it and discard. If you don't do this, the broth will turn bitter. Toss in the shrimp and anchovies and let it boil for about 7-8 minutes. Skim the nasty froth that comes on top. Strain and keep the liquid. Discard the solids.
Heat up the oil. Fry the onions and the garlic until golden. Add the tomato purée and fry for a bit. Add the dashi, cilantro, salt and black pepper and bring to a rolling boil. Cook for about 6-7 minutes. Turn off the heat and let it steep for 10 minutes or so. Strain the broth pressing down on the solids to extract as much of the broth as necessary. Discard the solids.
(If you have two pots, the dashi can directly be strained into the second step. It will save you tons of time.)
Steam the clams with either the broth or some water. As they open, remove them and shuck off the half-shell. You can also just shuck them and store if you don't want to serve them with the half-shells.
Filter the clam broth with some paper towels. Clams are generally very gritty. Add this clam broth to the other broth.
Bring the broth to a rolling boil. Check for salt. You may need more.
Pour the broth over the clams. Add the cilantro on top. Serve at once with the crusty bread.
† This can't be entirely surprising for a recipe that was a decade in the making.
Since the restaurant is a bit of a hike for the CC, he always ends up ordering the soup — rather than the other possibly amazing dishes — and he's never disappointed. It's served with some bread (at best, average) and some amazing homemade aji criollo.
However, it's the soup that really sings and the CC has been trying to reproduce it ever since.
At long last — it only took a decade — he's untangled the various strands and made it for himself, and it's exactly as killer.
There were several hidden problems that needed to be solved. One was that the soup came with this emulsified broth with a very deep taste. Inside it were placed four or five rather large clams. Finely chopped cilantro was sprinkled on the top. The broth had no solids but it had an intense flavor. There was a reasonable amount of oil in the broth like all restaurants. However, this turned out to be a red herring. There were more important things at play.
Some things were really obvious. There was a lot of tomato purée in the broth. There were the deep notes of black pepper. It was clear it was some kind of fish broth. It also had a very deep cilantro flavor that could not be coming from the tiny amount of stuff sprinkled on top.
The other clue was the price point on the menu. It was one of the cheapest items, and the serving was large enough for a very good lunch. Now, clams are rather cheap on the Eastern seaboard but they're not that cheap so that means the ingredients inside the broth had to be cheaper. (The CC considered the possibility that they were using commercial clam juice but the taste of the broth had a subtle fresh flavor so it didn't seem very likely.)
Other clues. The clams were served on the half-shell and were very juicy. They could not have been cooked with the broth, and they were too plump to have been sitting in there for too long.
Two other important clues.
The dish always took a little longer to serve than other dishes (when the CC went with friends) and the surprising one — the broth was served piping hot. It was served almost at boiling point (close to 90-95°C.) When the broth cooled down, the soup didn't taste as good. Clearly, the temperature mattered greatly.
Peruvian cuisine is the ultimate mashup — besides the indigenous Incan origin, it's had Spanish, Italian, Chinese, West African and particularly Japanese influences.
It was clear that the broth had tons of umami but once again the price-point was critical. They may have been using MSG but it was being done with a light hand.
The critical insight is that this was a cheap restaurant surviving on very low margins. Nothing could be wasted. There were shrimp on the menu and they were clearly buying them whole. The broth was being made with the shrimp heads and the shells. They are the source of the resonant thumping flavor. Also, the broth clearly had onions and garlic and tons of black pepper and cilantro. However, after the broth being made, it was being filtered and solids pressed and tossed out. Then the clams were being shucked, and cooked in the broth, and whole thing brought to the table piping hot. They were also generous with salt.
Why did the temperature matter?
The CC is not completely sure but it seems plausible that the bitter notes of the cilantro and the pepper were dominating at lower temperatures. When hot, you just got the heady hit of the salt and umami from the broth and the tomatoes.
Sopa de Almejas
Note 1: The clams that the CC gets are the standard East Coast clams. The giant ones are easier to find up in Connecticut, Massachusetts & Maine. This doesn't matter as much. They were definitely using local stuff not Manila clams, etc.
Note 2: The salt in this recipe is really crucial. You need to add a teeny bit more than you think completely rational. The CC added salt to the boiling broth until it tasted "correct". It was a lot more than he expected. It will not be the same without.
Note 3: Unless you have shrimp heads and shells in your freezer, the clear substitute would be dried shrimp. You will also need some kombu unless you plan to add MSG. Not going to work otherwise.
Note 4: As ridiculous as this sounds, it's better with crusty bread that has been wrapped for about 6-8 hours in foil so that it goes just slightly limp from the exhalation of the moisture from the starch. The CC is perfectly aware that this is anal retentiveness† of the highest order.
Note 5: The broth really needs to be at a boil. The CC is not kidding.
Ingredients
(serves 2)
1 dozen clams
2 tbsp oil
1 small onion (diced fine)
6-8 cloves of garlic (chopped)
4-6 tbsp tomato purée
1 piece kombu
1/4 cup dried shrimp
1/4 cup dried anchovies (if you have them)
1/3 cup diced cilantro (stems and all)
3 tbsp coarsely ground black pepper
4 cups water
salt
finely chopped cilantro leaves (to serve)
Recipe
First make the dashi.
Bring the water to the boil with the kombu. Right before the water boils, remove it and discard. If you don't do this, the broth will turn bitter. Toss in the shrimp and anchovies and let it boil for about 7-8 minutes. Skim the nasty froth that comes on top. Strain and keep the liquid. Discard the solids.
Heat up the oil. Fry the onions and the garlic until golden. Add the tomato purée and fry for a bit. Add the dashi, cilantro, salt and black pepper and bring to a rolling boil. Cook for about 6-7 minutes. Turn off the heat and let it steep for 10 minutes or so. Strain the broth pressing down on the solids to extract as much of the broth as necessary. Discard the solids.
(If you have two pots, the dashi can directly be strained into the second step. It will save you tons of time.)
Steam the clams with either the broth or some water. As they open, remove them and shuck off the half-shell. You can also just shuck them and store if you don't want to serve them with the half-shells.
Filter the clam broth with some paper towels. Clams are generally very gritty. Add this clam broth to the other broth.
Bring the broth to a rolling boil. Check for salt. You may need more.
Pour the broth over the clams. Add the cilantro on top. Serve at once with the crusty bread.
† This can't be entirely surprising for a recipe that was a decade in the making.
Saturday, August 22, 2015
Huevos Rotos
After the insane tapas party, the CC needed to make something basic and elemental. He did some searching and, lo and behold, he had all the ingredients necessary for a nutritious and tasty breakfast.
This is not a "fast" dish. However, you don't need to do much. Set the timer and get away.
Best eggs ever. They combine the magic of "home fries" and poached eggs in one easy dish.
You need to serve them with jamon serrano, of course.
Ingredients
(serves 2)
1 large onion (chopped coarsely)
1 green pepper (chopped into matchsticks)
3 fingerling potatoes (chopped into thin rounds)
4 cloves garlic (minced fine)
4 eggs
1/4 cup parsley
1 tsp paprika (agridolce)
olive oil
salt
pepper
Recipe
You need a frying pan that has a lid.
Heat up some olive oil in a pan. When it shimmers, toss in the onion and the garlic. Fry for a bit. Add the peppers and let them fry for a bit. Add the potatoes, turn the heat down to the lowest possible setting and let them cook. Add the paprika, salt and pepper. Let the potatoes cook for at least 25 minutes. Add the parsley and let cook for an additional 5 minutes. (Total of 30 minutes.)
Keep stirring while the potatoes cook. Every 10 minutes is sufficient. No need to break them up.
You will be able to smell the potatoes being done. It's unmistakable.
Spread the mixture evenly over the pan. Crack the four eggs in the four corners. Cover the pan and let cook for 4 minutes. You may need an extra minute but take the pan off the heat once the whites are set.
Serve the poached eggs - two per person with the potatoes below. The yolk will be barely set but that's perfect when you crack it and it coats the potatoes. Enjoy with the jamon in tow.
This is not a "fast" dish. However, you don't need to do much. Set the timer and get away.
Best eggs ever. They combine the magic of "home fries" and poached eggs in one easy dish.
You need to serve them with jamon serrano, of course.
Ingredients
(serves 2)
1 large onion (chopped coarsely)
1 green pepper (chopped into matchsticks)
3 fingerling potatoes (chopped into thin rounds)
4 cloves garlic (minced fine)
4 eggs
1/4 cup parsley
1 tsp paprika (agridolce)
olive oil
salt
pepper
Recipe
You need a frying pan that has a lid.
Heat up some olive oil in a pan. When it shimmers, toss in the onion and the garlic. Fry for a bit. Add the peppers and let them fry for a bit. Add the potatoes, turn the heat down to the lowest possible setting and let them cook. Add the paprika, salt and pepper. Let the potatoes cook for at least 25 minutes. Add the parsley and let cook for an additional 5 minutes. (Total of 30 minutes.)
Keep stirring while the potatoes cook. Every 10 minutes is sufficient. No need to break them up.
You will be able to smell the potatoes being done. It's unmistakable.
Spread the mixture evenly over the pan. Crack the four eggs in the four corners. Cover the pan and let cook for 4 minutes. You may need an extra minute but take the pan off the heat once the whites are set.
Serve the poached eggs - two per person with the potatoes below. The yolk will be barely set but that's perfect when you crack it and it coats the potatoes. Enjoy with the jamon in tow.
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Golden Beet & Beet Greens Soup
This is the ultimate meta-recipe for a simple
soup based on the barest minimum of ingredients.
The modern-day conception is unmistakably French although soups of this nature undoubtedly floated all around Europe before the codification of national cuisines in the 19th century.
They rely on only a handful of ingredients for flavoring and they can be tailored to both the seasons and the occasion. The soup can be made limpid and elegant or hearty and robust using just a few tricks.
The recipe at its heart is simple. Onions and/or related alliums — leeks, garlic, shallots are sautéed in olive oil till they are golden. Then water (or a clear broth) is added and the mixture brought to a boil. To this are added some vegetables which are cooked until tender. The vegetables (typically root vegetables) add their own flavor to the broth. At the last minute, finely chiffonaded greens are added and the soup is taken off the heat and served.
The recipe is so extraordinarily simple that naturally the CC needs to explain it in copious detail.
Simplicity frequently belies an underlying deep complexity.
The allium family, of which onions are a member of, are rich in volatile sulfur compounds. This is what causes their pungency and all the tearing. Only a small amount of molecules make their way to your eye but it's enough for you to start crying. It's a defense mechanism to prevent them from being eaten by animals but, of course, we humans figured a work around.
Cooking.
The flavor is coming from the sautéeing of the alliums. The sulfur compound that causes the tearing (1-propenyl sulfenic acid) converts in the presence of heat into another compound (3-mercapto-2-methlylpentan-1-ol) that is strongly present in meat broth. This is perceived to our tongues in the presence of salt as a very strong savory flavor. We're using alliums but our tongues and stomach are screaming "MEAT!!!".
This is why many cuisines worldwide use onions as the base of any recipe. It also shows how strongly the evolution of our tongue and diet has relied on meat, the last few thousand years of modern-day vegetarianism notwithstanding.
The addition of vegetables to this broth increases the savory quotient and results in an intensely flavored broth. The greens add complexity, nutrition, textural and visual interest.
The vegetables are almost always paired with their corresponding greens. Beets and beet greens. Turnips and turnip greens. Carrots and carrot fronds. Potatoes and dandelion greens (weeds). You get the idea.
This recipe is clearly a peasant recipe that got refined and passed upwards into the nobility. It's origins clearly betray the fact that it was meant as a recipe that doesn't waste anything. You use the beets and the greens that come up with the beets. The entire plant and no wastage. Something that should appeal to the present "back-to-the-past waste-not-want-not" movement.
Heft can be added in one of four different ways:
For the record, the CC once made the lightest alternative for his mom as part of a three-course lunch and he was greeted with, "I want a second helping."
This is a meta-recipe that clearly belongs in the Pantheon of the Greats.
Ingredients
(serves 2)
2 small golden beets with greens attached
2 onions
1 head spring garlic
3 cups water
sea salt
black pepper (lots!)
1/2 cup white beans pre-cooked (optional)
4 slices stale bread (optional)
1/2 cup parmigiano-reggiano (optional)
Recipe
Note 1: The recipe is made with golden beets because it respects the "clean" broth look that this recipe entails. The water has a light golden color. Regular beets would work but they would color the broth pink. The recipe has a clear limpid texture even though that's not obvious in the picture above.
Note 2: For a more elegant presentation while adding heft, make some parmesan toasts.
Separate the beets from the greens. Cut out the central stem of each frond retaining just the leafy green part.
Peel the beets and chop into flat medium-thick rings.
Chop the onions into quarter rings. Chop the garlic into slivers.
Sautée the onions and garlic in some olive oil at medium heat. Add the black pepper. When they are golden (but not colored) add 3 cups of water and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down. Add the beets and beans (if using) and let cook covered for about 6-7 minutes at medium heat until the beets are done.
Taste the broth for salt and add as much as necessary.
Once more bring the mixture to a rolling boil. Add the greens and turn the heat off. Let them sit for 1 minute.
Serve at once over bread (if using) with parmesan (if using).
The modern-day conception is unmistakably French although soups of this nature undoubtedly floated all around Europe before the codification of national cuisines in the 19th century.
They rely on only a handful of ingredients for flavoring and they can be tailored to both the seasons and the occasion. The soup can be made limpid and elegant or hearty and robust using just a few tricks.
The recipe at its heart is simple. Onions and/or related alliums — leeks, garlic, shallots are sautéed in olive oil till they are golden. Then water (or a clear broth) is added and the mixture brought to a boil. To this are added some vegetables which are cooked until tender. The vegetables (typically root vegetables) add their own flavor to the broth. At the last minute, finely chiffonaded greens are added and the soup is taken off the heat and served.
The recipe is so extraordinarily simple that naturally the CC needs to explain it in copious detail.
Simplicity frequently belies an underlying deep complexity.
The allium family, of which onions are a member of, are rich in volatile sulfur compounds. This is what causes their pungency and all the tearing. Only a small amount of molecules make their way to your eye but it's enough for you to start crying. It's a defense mechanism to prevent them from being eaten by animals but, of course, we humans figured a work around.
Cooking.
The flavor is coming from the sautéeing of the alliums. The sulfur compound that causes the tearing (1-propenyl sulfenic acid) converts in the presence of heat into another compound (3-mercapto-2-methlylpentan-1-ol) that is strongly present in meat broth. This is perceived to our tongues in the presence of salt as a very strong savory flavor. We're using alliums but our tongues and stomach are screaming "MEAT!!!".
This is why many cuisines worldwide use onions as the base of any recipe. It also shows how strongly the evolution of our tongue and diet has relied on meat, the last few thousand years of modern-day vegetarianism notwithstanding.
The addition of vegetables to this broth increases the savory quotient and results in an intensely flavored broth. The greens add complexity, nutrition, textural and visual interest.
The vegetables are almost always paired with their corresponding greens. Beets and beet greens. Turnips and turnip greens. Carrots and carrot fronds. Potatoes and dandelion greens (weeds). You get the idea.
This recipe is clearly a peasant recipe that got refined and passed upwards into the nobility. It's origins clearly betray the fact that it was meant as a recipe that doesn't waste anything. You use the beets and the greens that come up with the beets. The entire plant and no wastage. Something that should appeal to the present "back-to-the-past waste-not-want-not" movement.
Heft can be added in one of four different ways:
- Broth instead of water.
- Cooked beans which add more protein.
- Soup poured over stale bread.
- Sprinkling of parmesan on top (more umami.)
For the record, the CC once made the lightest alternative for his mom as part of a three-course lunch and he was greeted with, "I want a second helping."
This is a meta-recipe that clearly belongs in the Pantheon of the Greats.
Ingredients(serves 2)
2 small golden beets with greens attached
2 onions
1 head spring garlic
3 cups water
sea salt
black pepper (lots!)
1/2 cup white beans pre-cooked (optional)
4 slices stale bread (optional)
1/2 cup parmigiano-reggiano (optional)
Recipe
Note 1: The recipe is made with golden beets because it respects the "clean" broth look that this recipe entails. The water has a light golden color. Regular beets would work but they would color the broth pink. The recipe has a clear limpid texture even though that's not obvious in the picture above.
Note 2: For a more elegant presentation while adding heft, make some parmesan toasts.
Separate the beets from the greens. Cut out the central stem of each frond retaining just the leafy green part.
Peel the beets and chop into flat medium-thick rings.
Chop the onions into quarter rings. Chop the garlic into slivers.
Sautée the onions and garlic in some olive oil at medium heat. Add the black pepper. When they are golden (but not colored) add 3 cups of water and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down. Add the beets and beans (if using) and let cook covered for about 6-7 minutes at medium heat until the beets are done.
Taste the broth for salt and add as much as necessary.
Once more bring the mixture to a rolling boil. Add the greens and turn the heat off. Let them sit for 1 minute.
Serve at once over bread (if using) with parmesan (if using).
Monday, January 13, 2014
Mung Beans with Caramelized Onions & Nigella Seeds
This is a truly superb dish. It is apparently one of the most loved recipes at the Çırağan Palace in Istanbul and this version comes courtesy of Silvena Rowe.
It's a masterpiece of textural contrast so do follow all the steps as mentioned down to the last step.
The salad is on the bottom right. (Remaining recipes to follow.)
Ingredients
1/2 cup mung beans
2 small onions (sliced fine)
3 shallots (sliced fine)
1/4 cup olive oil (your regular)
3 tbsp olive oil (your finest)
6 tbsp. red wine vinegar
2 tbsp. finely chopped parsley
1 tsp Dijon mustard
sea salt
black pepper
8-10 sun-dried tomatoes (chopped)
1 tbsp. nigella seeds (toasted)
Recipe
Cook the mung beans for about 30 minutes until tender. Be careful not to overcook them. You want a little bit of crunch. Drain and set aside.
Toast the nigella seeds lightly in a skillet. Be careful since they will burn easily. Set aside.
Heat the regular olive oil in a large skillet over low heat. Add the onions and sautée for 20-25 minutes until they are soft and lightly golden. Do not let them caramelize. Add a tbsp. of water if they seem to be cooking too quickly.
(Note: the onions are cooked but the shallots are not! The textural game is important.)
Combine the fine olive oil, shallots, vinegar, parsley, mustard, sea salt and black pepper to make a fine vinaigrette.
Toss the vinaigrette with the mung beans and the sun-dried tomatoes. Top with caramelized onions and the toasted nigella seeds.
Serve warm or at room temperature.
It's a masterpiece of textural contrast so do follow all the steps as mentioned down to the last step.
The salad is on the bottom right. (Remaining recipes to follow.)
Ingredients
1/2 cup mung beans
2 small onions (sliced fine)
3 shallots (sliced fine)
1/4 cup olive oil (your regular)
3 tbsp olive oil (your finest)
6 tbsp. red wine vinegar
2 tbsp. finely chopped parsley
1 tsp Dijon mustard
sea salt
black pepper
8-10 sun-dried tomatoes (chopped)
1 tbsp. nigella seeds (toasted)
Recipe
Cook the mung beans for about 30 minutes until tender. Be careful not to overcook them. You want a little bit of crunch. Drain and set aside.
Toast the nigella seeds lightly in a skillet. Be careful since they will burn easily. Set aside.
Heat the regular olive oil in a large skillet over low heat. Add the onions and sautée for 20-25 minutes until they are soft and lightly golden. Do not let them caramelize. Add a tbsp. of water if they seem to be cooking too quickly.
(Note: the onions are cooked but the shallots are not! The textural game is important.)
Combine the fine olive oil, shallots, vinegar, parsley, mustard, sea salt and black pepper to make a fine vinaigrette.
Toss the vinaigrette with the mung beans and the sun-dried tomatoes. Top with caramelized onions and the toasted nigella seeds.
Serve warm or at room temperature.
Monday, December 10, 2012
Better Living Through Chemistry (or Why Julia was Deluded!)
It's very rare when you can say that Julia Child was flat-out wrong†. It's even more wondrous to say that not only was Julia wrong but that Escoffier was wrong‡ too. It's almost downright iconoclastic to say that not only were they wrong but that they were wrong in that most classical of French techniques — stock making.
And yet they were.
Welcome to the modern world of technology and chemistry!
The first crack in the facade is that you frequently hear them talking about "refreshing the stock". You need to keep adding in spices, etc. to "freshen" the stock. Why would you need to do so? Shouldn't the stock already be fresh? Shouldn't the spices already be there?
The answer as many of you might know is that what we think of as taste is really smell and spices consist of volatile molecules that dissipate in the air. Particularly when they are boiled.
Classical stock making consists of boiling the living daylights out of a standard flavor mixture. The short version is that it consists of vegetables plus meat plus aromatics. First the vegetables are fried, then the meat and aromatics added. Then a ton of water and the whole thing is brought to a simmer. The oil allows the oil-soluble volatile compounds to get transferred to the water and you must skim off the fat that comes to the surface. When the meat and vegetables have given up all their goodness to the water, you have stock.
Classical stock makes the house smell good§. That's another way of saying that the volatile compounds are dissipating in the air and you will need to find a way to "refresh" them later because they are being lost.
The trick consists of not losing the volatile molecules in the first place. This is not a particularly original idea. It was first suggested by Heston Blumenthal a while ago and given more modern credence by Nathan Myhrvold in his epic Modernist Cuisine.
However, you must own a pressure cooker.
The fundamentals of stock making remain in play. The onions and vegetables must be fried. That's Maillard for you. The meat must be roasted (if making brown stock). That's also Maillard. However, instead of boiling it, you pressure cook for a much shorter time (at a higher temperature) and you filter it after it cools back to room temperature.
Your stock will be amazingly concentrated and you will have done it in half the time.
Given the absurdly cold weather, the CC had sourced some organic beef shin bones and went about making a classical "brown stock" in order to make French Onion Soup. The recipes for both follow below.
Here are a few tricks that you might not have heard of. They are actually quite common among chefs but the CC never sees any of these "dark arts" being published in the literature. (Why would they give their secrets away?)
† To be fair to Julia, she did explore the idea even back then. However, the pressure cooking technology of her time kinda sucked. Modern pressure cookers are much more precise so she wasn't really wrong. At least, for her time. But times change and technology evolves.
‡ Just too early really.
§ There are many practitioners of "modernist cuisine" that think that the kitchen must have no smells whatsoever. They do have an excellent point but this is practically impossible for most of us so we must live with reasonable compromises while pursuing that flighty temptress, perfection.
Brown Stock
Ingredients
2 beef shin bones
1 large onion
1 large carrot
2-3 cloves garlic
2-3 pods star-anise
4 dried shiitake mushrooms
rosemary
black pepper
salt
Recipe
First, roast the bones at 450°F for about 40 minutes. They will give off a lot of fat. Discard or use for other purposes. They should be lightly browned.
Fry the onions, garlic and the carrot in the pressure cooker. Add the bones and fry some more. Add all the ingredients, cover to the top with water and let pressure cook for at least two hours. You will need to fiddle with the heat so that there is no hissing at all. (No losses!)
Let the pressure cooker cool down naturally which will take the better part of an hour.
If you do this right, when the broth cools almost all of the fat will be on the surface. Another advantage of using a pressure cooker. Using a ladle you can just skim the fat right off.
On a coolness note, you can hear the bones crack inside the pressure cooker at some point. Not to worry. The goodness is being extracted.
You should chill the broth overnight and skim the fat that will accumulate at the top. You can freeze the broth at this point if you like.
French Onion Soup
Ingredients
16 large onions (yes!)
6 cups beef broth
1 tbsp flour
butter
olive oil
stale bread (read below!)
1/3 cup grated gruyère
1/4 cup grated parmigiano-reggiano
Recipe
At least, for this the CC is happy to report, there's no bettering classical technique so you'll just have to get down to it.
Cut the onions into semi-circles.
Heat the butter and olive oil in a large pot. If you follow Julia, it should be all butter but the CC has found that the mixture works better. Add the onions to the pot. Turn the heat onto medium-high and let cook for an hour. Stir every 20 minutes. Towards the end you will probably need to stir every 5 minutes or so.
The onions will turn into a rich dark color. It may take longer depending on the moisture content.
Add a tablespoon of flour, and let it cook for about 5 minutes.
Add the broth and bring to a boil. Let cook for about 25 minutes on medium-low heat.
You will need stale bread that is preferably naturally leavened and let it dry out. Cover the piece with the grated cheese and stick it under the broiler for about 3 minutes. Be very careful. This has a tendency to burn. 30 seconds the wrong way and you will have a burnt mess. Best to keep checking.
Ladle the soup over the bread-cheese combo. Slurp.
And yet they were.
Welcome to the modern world of technology and chemistry!
The first crack in the facade is that you frequently hear them talking about "refreshing the stock". You need to keep adding in spices, etc. to "freshen" the stock. Why would you need to do so? Shouldn't the stock already be fresh? Shouldn't the spices already be there?
The answer as many of you might know is that what we think of as taste is really smell and spices consist of volatile molecules that dissipate in the air. Particularly when they are boiled.
Classical stock making consists of boiling the living daylights out of a standard flavor mixture. The short version is that it consists of vegetables plus meat plus aromatics. First the vegetables are fried, then the meat and aromatics added. Then a ton of water and the whole thing is brought to a simmer. The oil allows the oil-soluble volatile compounds to get transferred to the water and you must skim off the fat that comes to the surface. When the meat and vegetables have given up all their goodness to the water, you have stock.
Classical stock makes the house smell good§. That's another way of saying that the volatile compounds are dissipating in the air and you will need to find a way to "refresh" them later because they are being lost.
The trick consists of not losing the volatile molecules in the first place. This is not a particularly original idea. It was first suggested by Heston Blumenthal a while ago and given more modern credence by Nathan Myhrvold in his epic Modernist Cuisine.
However, you must own a pressure cooker.
The fundamentals of stock making remain in play. The onions and vegetables must be fried. That's Maillard for you. The meat must be roasted (if making brown stock). That's also Maillard. However, instead of boiling it, you pressure cook for a much shorter time (at a higher temperature) and you filter it after it cools back to room temperature.
Your stock will be amazingly concentrated and you will have done it in half the time.
Given the absurdly cold weather, the CC had sourced some organic beef shin bones and went about making a classical "brown stock" in order to make French Onion Soup. The recipes for both follow below.
Here are a few tricks that you might not have heard of. They are actually quite common among chefs but the CC never sees any of these "dark arts" being published in the literature. (Why would they give their secrets away?)
- Toss in 2-3 pods of star anise into the broth when you are making it. Star anise contains anethole which is a polyphenol. It's both distinctly sweeter than sugar and also will react with sulfur in the onions to turn into the wonderful aromatics characteristic of the Maillard reaction. This intensifies the "meatiness" of the broth. If used in moderation, you will not smell the characteristic "anise smell" in the broth. (Consider this as the Vietnamese contribution to classical French cooking!)
- Toss in a handful of dried shiitake mushrooms. Alternatively, if you are feeling flush in cash, toss in some dried porcini mushrooms. The mushrooms amp up the existing umami from the vegetables and the meat by adding their own guanylates to the mix. (On a side note, chefs frequently "amp" up commercial beef broth by just tossing in a handful of the cheap dried shiitake mushrooms, boiling for a bit and filtering. Yes, it is that effective!)
- When roasting the meat, it's traditionally tossed with flour which will brown a bit. Toss it with condensed milk instead. Once more, this is Maestro Maillard riding to the rescue. The condensed milk just has more of the proteins in a concentrated framework.
- After cooking the stock in the pressure cooker ("no skimming, no hard work"), all the fat will be on the surface. This is the magic of high-heat, no boiling. You can just skim it off with a ladle. Then pass the broth through three layers of folded cheese cloth. Do not press the cloth but it's fine to let it drip dry. The volume will reduce drastically. This is clarification by filtration. Chill immediately in an ice bath. This is important.
- If you want to clarify it further, chill overnight, scrape the fat off the top, reheat without boiling, and do process [1] again. Your chef friends will be absolutely amazed at your consommé and you will have done it for a tenth of the classical effort which involves egg whites. (Incidentally, the egg whites are just a less efficient version of the same filtration described above AND they cause substantial loss of the volatile flavor molecules which is what we want in the first place!)
† To be fair to Julia, she did explore the idea even back then. However, the pressure cooking technology of her time kinda sucked. Modern pressure cookers are much more precise so she wasn't really wrong. At least, for her time. But times change and technology evolves.
‡ Just too early really.
§ There are many practitioners of "modernist cuisine" that think that the kitchen must have no smells whatsoever. They do have an excellent point but this is practically impossible for most of us so we must live with reasonable compromises while pursuing that flighty temptress, perfection.
Brown Stock
Ingredients
2 beef shin bones
1 large onion
1 large carrot
2-3 cloves garlic
2-3 pods star-anise
4 dried shiitake mushrooms
rosemary
black pepper
salt
Recipe
First, roast the bones at 450°F for about 40 minutes. They will give off a lot of fat. Discard or use for other purposes. They should be lightly browned.
Fry the onions, garlic and the carrot in the pressure cooker. Add the bones and fry some more. Add all the ingredients, cover to the top with water and let pressure cook for at least two hours. You will need to fiddle with the heat so that there is no hissing at all. (No losses!)
Let the pressure cooker cool down naturally which will take the better part of an hour.
If you do this right, when the broth cools almost all of the fat will be on the surface. Another advantage of using a pressure cooker. Using a ladle you can just skim the fat right off.
On a coolness note, you can hear the bones crack inside the pressure cooker at some point. Not to worry. The goodness is being extracted.
You should chill the broth overnight and skim the fat that will accumulate at the top. You can freeze the broth at this point if you like.
French Onion Soup
Ingredients
16 large onions (yes!)
6 cups beef broth
1 tbsp flour
butter
olive oil
stale bread (read below!)
1/3 cup grated gruyère
1/4 cup grated parmigiano-reggiano
Recipe
At least, for this the CC is happy to report, there's no bettering classical technique so you'll just have to get down to it.
Cut the onions into semi-circles.
Heat the butter and olive oil in a large pot. If you follow Julia, it should be all butter but the CC has found that the mixture works better. Add the onions to the pot. Turn the heat onto medium-high and let cook for an hour. Stir every 20 minutes. Towards the end you will probably need to stir every 5 minutes or so.
The onions will turn into a rich dark color. It may take longer depending on the moisture content.
Add a tablespoon of flour, and let it cook for about 5 minutes.
Add the broth and bring to a boil. Let cook for about 25 minutes on medium-low heat.
You will need stale bread that is preferably naturally leavened and let it dry out. Cover the piece with the grated cheese and stick it under the broiler for about 3 minutes. Be very careful. This has a tendency to burn. 30 seconds the wrong way and you will have a burnt mess. Best to keep checking.
Ladle the soup over the bread-cheese combo. Slurp.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Things that make you go hmmm ...
Have you ever read a recipe in a cookbook and said to yourself, "There's no fuckin' way that can work!"?
Happens to the CC all the time. He then ends up yelling at the book which classifies him as one of the crazies but that's him, isn't it?
It comes with experience to all cooks even if you are not familiar with the cuisine in question. It's frequently just a matter of timings which have clearly not been tested and/or are more than a touch speculative. The amount of the sizes could also be all bollocksed to high heaven (tablespoons instead of teaspoons is all too common), or the proportions could be upsized and upchuck-worthy. (4 cups of water in 1 cup of flour will not yield a dough — it will yield a liquid mess!)
Here's a classic blooper from Lathika George's "The Kerala Kitchen".
(In the parlance of our time, this bitch be smokin' some serious crack!)
It's a classic egg curry found all over India. You hard-boil some eggs and separately make a curry. At the end, you cut the eggs length-wise and mix with the curry, re-heat and serve. Hardly complicated.
The trick that makes this specific recipe work is the same trick that makes classic French Onion Soup work. It requires a mass of onions to be browned and then a whole ton of spices and tomatoes are added to it. This turns into a dry curry.
The recipe in the book calls for the onions to be fried for 2-3 minutes and after that, the tomatoes to be cooked for two minutes.
In your fuckin' dreams, lady!
Even twenty minutes is too little for this to work. The last time the CC made a French Onion Soup, it took more than an hour for the onions to do their magic.
This is the principle of IST (Indian Stretchable Time) applied to cooking where five minutes really means fifty. (A lot of cultures have this principle encoded as a joke. There is even the concept of NST used by the "suitable in-crowd" and the CC will not translate that particular one.)
Now admittedly, this stuff is cooked at medium-high heat instead of the relatively gentle burble of the onions for the soup and the soup calls for a vastly larger number of onions but still. There is absolutely no fuckin' way in hell a mass of onions plus tomatoes is going to give up all that moisture in a total of five minutes. Incidentally, that's what frying really is — a precise way to remove moisture.
A significant fraction of this can squarely be blamed not on the author but on the editors. You needn't look towards the travesty of Rachael Ray and Sandra Lee. They are just the logical culmination of something that has been going on since Edouard de Pomiane in La Cuisine en dix minutes, ou l'Adaptation au rythme moderne.
We like speed. We like convenience. Cooking can be a chore even for the most committed amongst us. We are, alas, all too human.
Except that Pomiane was a genius. He clearly states what can and can't be hurried up and his entirely elegant solution for "hurrying up" is that if a recipe can't be hurried up, you shouldn't make it or serve it to your guests on a weeknight. Genius!
Pomiane's book is hands-down a work of a master and someone deeply steeped in the art of cooking. You will learn better from him how to make a classic sauce hollandaise than from all the textbooks and French chef's of the world. He has idiot-proofed something that is considered a "junior chef's challenge". (Science is why his technique works and since he was a physician and microbiologist, chances are that he understood in detail what he was doing.)
Editors, listen up! There is no shame in saying that something takes thirty minutes instead of three. There's no fuckin' shame in explaining in simple terms the science behind a recipe. People are smarter than you think and those that are likely to buy an obscure cookbook are much more likely to spend thirty minutes than three.
So don't try and push it. Not only do you get a travesty of a recipe but also you get an inedible fuckin' mess!
Isn't this entirely obvious?
So here's the classic egg curry from Kerala reworked for your benefit.
(And yes, the CC used a timer to time it as opposed to the gormless Ms. George who clearly did not test worth the proverbial Indian dam!)
Egg Curry
Ingredients
6 eggs (hard-boiled)
3-4 cups onions (very thinly sliced)
2 tomatoes (finely diced)
12 curry leaves
1 tbsp ginger (chopped into very thin slivers)
4 cloves garlic (sliced thin)
3-4 chillies slit lengthwise
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp chilli powder (or to taste)
4 tbsp black pepper
salt
Recipe
First make the eggs. Cover them in cold water. Bring them to a boil and turn the heat to low. Cook for 8 minutes. Remove and immediately dunk into an ice-bath to cool off.
You will get perfectly hard-boiled eggs without the yolk turning chalky and none of the green sulfurous ring around them.
Peel them and set aside.
Combine the turmeric, salt, chilli powder and black pepper with a few tablespoons of water to make a thick paste. Don't add too much water.
Heat up some oil and when heated (7 mins) dump in the mass of onions. Let fry on a medium-high heat until they change color but are not blackened. Roughly 17 minutes.
Twenty-four minutes and counting.
Dump in the curry leaves, ginger, garlic slit chillies, and let fry for a bit (3 minutes.)
Add the tomatoes and spice paste. You may need to add some water to make sure it doesn't burn. Let cook at a low heat for about 8 minutes until the tomatoes turn saucy.
We're up to 35 minutes now, you clueless bitch!
Cut the eggs length-wise into halves and add them yolk-side up and let them gently heat up to the sauce. About 3 minutes. Serve.
So nearly 40 minutes not counting the time to make the hard-boiled eggs.
Happens to the CC all the time. He then ends up yelling at the book which classifies him as one of the crazies but that's him, isn't it?
It comes with experience to all cooks even if you are not familiar with the cuisine in question. It's frequently just a matter of timings which have clearly not been tested and/or are more than a touch speculative. The amount of the sizes could also be all bollocksed to high heaven (tablespoons instead of teaspoons is all too common), or the proportions could be upsized and upchuck-worthy. (4 cups of water in 1 cup of flour will not yield a dough — it will yield a liquid mess!)
Here's a classic blooper from Lathika George's "The Kerala Kitchen".
(In the parlance of our time, this bitch be smokin' some serious crack!)
It's a classic egg curry found all over India. You hard-boil some eggs and separately make a curry. At the end, you cut the eggs length-wise and mix with the curry, re-heat and serve. Hardly complicated.
The trick that makes this specific recipe work is the same trick that makes classic French Onion Soup work. It requires a mass of onions to be browned and then a whole ton of spices and tomatoes are added to it. This turns into a dry curry.
The recipe in the book calls for the onions to be fried for 2-3 minutes and after that, the tomatoes to be cooked for two minutes.
In your fuckin' dreams, lady!
Even twenty minutes is too little for this to work. The last time the CC made a French Onion Soup, it took more than an hour for the onions to do their magic.
This is the principle of IST (Indian Stretchable Time) applied to cooking where five minutes really means fifty. (A lot of cultures have this principle encoded as a joke. There is even the concept of NST used by the "suitable in-crowd" and the CC will not translate that particular one.)
Now admittedly, this stuff is cooked at medium-high heat instead of the relatively gentle burble of the onions for the soup and the soup calls for a vastly larger number of onions but still. There is absolutely no fuckin' way in hell a mass of onions plus tomatoes is going to give up all that moisture in a total of five minutes. Incidentally, that's what frying really is — a precise way to remove moisture.
A significant fraction of this can squarely be blamed not on the author but on the editors. You needn't look towards the travesty of Rachael Ray and Sandra Lee. They are just the logical culmination of something that has been going on since Edouard de Pomiane in La Cuisine en dix minutes, ou l'Adaptation au rythme moderne.
We like speed. We like convenience. Cooking can be a chore even for the most committed amongst us. We are, alas, all too human.
Except that Pomiane was a genius. He clearly states what can and can't be hurried up and his entirely elegant solution for "hurrying up" is that if a recipe can't be hurried up, you shouldn't make it or serve it to your guests on a weeknight. Genius!
Pomiane's book is hands-down a work of a master and someone deeply steeped in the art of cooking. You will learn better from him how to make a classic sauce hollandaise than from all the textbooks and French chef's of the world. He has idiot-proofed something that is considered a "junior chef's challenge". (Science is why his technique works and since he was a physician and microbiologist, chances are that he understood in detail what he was doing.)
Editors, listen up! There is no shame in saying that something takes thirty minutes instead of three. There's no fuckin' shame in explaining in simple terms the science behind a recipe. People are smarter than you think and those that are likely to buy an obscure cookbook are much more likely to spend thirty minutes than three.
So don't try and push it. Not only do you get a travesty of a recipe but also you get an inedible fuckin' mess!
Isn't this entirely obvious?
So here's the classic egg curry from Kerala reworked for your benefit.
(And yes, the CC used a timer to time it as opposed to the gormless Ms. George who clearly did not test worth the proverbial Indian dam!)
Egg Curry
Ingredients
6 eggs (hard-boiled)
3-4 cups onions (very thinly sliced)
2 tomatoes (finely diced)
12 curry leaves
1 tbsp ginger (chopped into very thin slivers)
4 cloves garlic (sliced thin)
3-4 chillies slit lengthwise
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp chilli powder (or to taste)
4 tbsp black pepper
salt
Recipe
First make the eggs. Cover them in cold water. Bring them to a boil and turn the heat to low. Cook for 8 minutes. Remove and immediately dunk into an ice-bath to cool off.
You will get perfectly hard-boiled eggs without the yolk turning chalky and none of the green sulfurous ring around them.
Peel them and set aside.
Combine the turmeric, salt, chilli powder and black pepper with a few tablespoons of water to make a thick paste. Don't add too much water.
Heat up some oil and when heated (7 mins) dump in the mass of onions. Let fry on a medium-high heat until they change color but are not blackened. Roughly 17 minutes.
Twenty-four minutes and counting.
Dump in the curry leaves, ginger, garlic slit chillies, and let fry for a bit (3 minutes.)
Add the tomatoes and spice paste. You may need to add some water to make sure it doesn't burn. Let cook at a low heat for about 8 minutes until the tomatoes turn saucy.
We're up to 35 minutes now, you clueless bitch!
Cut the eggs length-wise into halves and add them yolk-side up and let them gently heat up to the sauce. About 3 minutes. Serve.
So nearly 40 minutes not counting the time to make the hard-boiled eggs.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
An Ode to Fried Onions
They are brilliant of course, particularly on topping rice as many a mujaddara-fan probably knows.
They are a bit of a pain to make so the CC decided to do some scientific tinkering around. He quickly realized that if you could have the onions lose moisture naturally before frying then the frying would be faster, and there'd be less splattering (both worthy goals to pursue.)
Naturally, that brought the humble refrigerator into light since modern refrigerators are dessicators. The fridge is a natural dehydrating agent since they dry out the main cavity to prevent growth of bacteria and mold. Sticking the onions sliced up thinly overnight in the refrigerator tends to dry them out which is not a good thing normally but it's brilliant for fried onions!
They are a bit of a pain to make so the CC decided to do some scientific tinkering around. He quickly realized that if you could have the onions lose moisture naturally before frying then the frying would be faster, and there'd be less splattering (both worthy goals to pursue.)
Naturally, that brought the humble refrigerator into light since modern refrigerators are dessicators. The fridge is a natural dehydrating agent since they dry out the main cavity to prevent growth of bacteria and mold. Sticking the onions sliced up thinly overnight in the refrigerator tends to dry them out which is not a good thing normally but it's brilliant for fried onions!
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Roasted Garlic and Onion Soup
This is a peasant recipe. Simple to make, yet complex in its flavors.
The best part is that you have to neither peel the garlic nor the onions.
Ingredients
1 head garlic
6 red onions
1/3 cup flour
4 cups broth (or water)
1/4 cup chopped parsley
olive oil
sea salt
black pepper
Recipe
Cut the garlic in half, and the onions in half as follows. Don't bother to peel.
Drizzle a sheet with olive oil, and lay them face down on the olive oil. Roast in a 350°F oven for roughly 45 mins.
Pop them out, and pop out the garlic and onion shells with a paring knife. They are soft and sticky, and hot so this step is the trickiest portion.
Drop them in a soup pot, and heat it to medium heat. There is plenty of olive oil in them so no need to add any more. Add the flour, and fry languidly till it is light-brown (Maillard reaction.)
Add the broth, salt and plenty of black pepper, and heat on a low flame. A lot of impurities will come to the top. Skim, baby, skim.
Blend the liquid with a blender.
Then turn the heat up, and cover and bring to a rolling boil.
Top with the chopped parsley, and serve with crusty bread.
The best part is that you have to neither peel the garlic nor the onions.
Ingredients
1 head garlic
6 red onions
1/3 cup flour
4 cups broth (or water)
1/4 cup chopped parsley
olive oil
sea salt
black pepper
Recipe
Cut the garlic in half, and the onions in half as follows. Don't bother to peel.
Drizzle a sheet with olive oil, and lay them face down on the olive oil. Roast in a 350°F oven for roughly 45 mins.
Pop them out, and pop out the garlic and onion shells with a paring knife. They are soft and sticky, and hot so this step is the trickiest portion.
Drop them in a soup pot, and heat it to medium heat. There is plenty of olive oil in them so no need to add any more. Add the flour, and fry languidly till it is light-brown (Maillard reaction.)
Add the broth, salt and plenty of black pepper, and heat on a low flame. A lot of impurities will come to the top. Skim, baby, skim.
Blend the liquid with a blender.
Then turn the heat up, and cover and bring to a rolling boil.
Top with the chopped parsley, and serve with crusty bread.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Whole Wheat Pasta with Caramelized Onions, Brussel Sprouts & Hazelnuts
Yeah, it's exactly as sex-on-a-plate™ as it sounds.
Three tricks:
Fry the onions first and and brussel sprouts after that, slowly and properly (probably take you 15+ mins.)
Toasted breadcrumbs are sprinkled on top right before serving.
The hazelnuts are toasted and crushed before sprinkling.
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Three tricks:
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